UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : MOMENTS OF TERROR : ‘My co-workers said: You’re lucky. God saved you.’

Thursday morning at 3 a.m. I was on my way to work in Compton. I had the overnight shift. At the intersection of Santa Fe and Pine the signals weren’t working. All the lights on the street were gone. The police were all around. I passed two of them, when I felt the windshield on my left side being hit by a shot. I couldn’t understand what happened. But then I heard another shot hit my car, I understood that they were shooting at me. The only thought that I had was to drive away.

I drove until I got to work. I thought they had only shot at me twice. But I checked my car and there were seven shots taken at it. All my co-workers said to me: “You’re lucky. God saved you.” Then they told me to go to the police station. But I thought that it was the Sheriff’s department which handles that area, so I went to their station. They started to ask me what color was the uniform of the police? I told them, it was too dark and I couldn’t distinguish, but I can say without a doubt that it was a lot darker than the ones they were wearing.

Then, they asked me to come in. They took my fingerprints and asked if I had used a gun. I asked them, why were they doing this to me? I had come here to register a complaint. I had been a victim. But they still went ahead with this. Afterwards they told me that someone had tried to kill a policeman.

I asked them, am I suspected of shooting at a cop? They said, no, they were only going to use me as a witness. I asked how I could be a witness, if I hadn’t seen a thing?

They asked me to sit down again, and afterwards they told me that the shooting that hurt the policeman occurred 20 minutes after my incident. But I was to stay there because the investigators were too busy.

Finally, one of the supervisors came in and said I’d been shot at by the Sheriff’s Department. Somebody said, “We’re sorry that this happened to you. Out there, there are some policeman that are embarrassing.”

They told me that they would handle all my bills: doctor’s, the car, getting it fixed. I knew I was at the station, but I felt lost. Something in me felt very far away, as if something didn’t want to come back to mind. They said, “We’ll pay for everything” and that they would take me to the doctor’s and they would do everything possible to help me get my car fixed.

The following day, another investigator came with a woman. They took photos of the car. They said they would pay for expenses and that they didn’t want any inconvenience for me. That’s all fine, but this morning the National Guards pointed at me as I was passing by and put the flashlight on me, and I started to get very nervous. They only put the flashlight on me, but I wondered, “How much time will I be like this?”

Today, I worked, and I came across policemen. They followed me and I thought: “They’re killers. How can I feel safe? I have never had any trouble, but how can I trust them now?”